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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (31466)	6/10/2010 9:42:20 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103300

Jersey Jihadist Carlos Almonte is an idiot, says former computer shop boss By Barry Paddock and Rich Schapiro DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Thursday, June 10th 2010, 4:00 AM Read more: nydailynews.com He wasn't the brains of the operation. Carlos Almonte, one of the terror suspects busted at Kennedy Airport, stunned co-workers at a New Jersey computer shop with his stupidity. "I'm telling you, this kid is not smart," said a supervisor. "The simplest stuff we told him to do, he couldn't - like organize this with that." Almonte worked at the store for more than a year, but quit about two weeks ago, saying life's "too expensive" in the Garden State, the supervisor said. "We were planning to lay him off, but he beat us to it," said the boss, who spoke on the condition that his name and the shop not be identified. Almonte told his co-workers he was moving to another state - apparently a cover for his planned trip to Africa. Authorities say Almonte and his wanna-be jihadist pal Mohamed Alessa were planning to link up with an Al Qaeda-linked militant group in the hope of getting the chance to kill American troops. His co-workers were amazed their dunce of a colleague is accused of such an ambitious plot. "The simplest stuff he cannot do. How's he going to do something like that?" the supervisor said. Almonte is not the first accused terrorist to be labeled a bonehead. Accused Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad made simple mistakes in constructing a bomb and left behind reams of physical evidence. Almonte, 24, and Alessa, 20, are due in Newark Federal Court today for a bail hearing.Barry Paddock Read more: nydailynews.com

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (31466)	6/10/2010 11:01:07 AM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

UPDATE: Far-Right Surge In Dutch Election Overshadows Reforms JUNE 10, 2010, 9:56 A.M. ET. online.wsj.com By Anna Marij van der Meulen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES AMSTERDAM (Dow Jones)--A surge of support for a far-right party with an anti-immigration focus has left the Netherlands facing the prospect of a hamstrung four-party coalition government. Geert Wilders' Freedom Party--which almost tripled its number of seats in the 150-member parliament, going to 24 from nine--is likely to prove a thorn in the side of any coalition government that emerges from Wednesday's elections. The surge in support for the Freedom Party trumped most forecasts and left mainstream parties with difficult coalition talks that economists fear could mean delays and compromises on budget cuts and economic reform. "The fact that Wilders' Freedom Party gained more than pre-election polls had forecast could be partly explained by voters being reluctant to admit they will vote for a controversial candidate due to social desirability reasons," said Alfred Pijpers, a senior political researcher at Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations. The phenomenon is known as the Bradley effect, after Tom Bradley, the Los Angeles mayor who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite being ahead in voter polls. Pijpers added that the popularity of Wilders could further be attributed to a moderation of his tone during the last weeks of the campaign. "He started to smile more and let go of his strong anti-Islam rhetoric," Pijpers said. Regardless of the reason for Wilders' surge, though, the success of the Freedom Party makes for a complicated election aftermath, analysts said. "Current election results mean no major decisions will be taken in the coming months, which could be a negative," said Royal Bank of Scotland analyst Mark Pieter de Boer. "Worst-case scenario would be a fighting coalition delaying reforms and potentially resulting in re-elections in one or two years' time." The Freedom Party's pledge to ban Muslims from entering the country, deny social support to other immigrants and introduce a tax on head scarves drowned out calls by mainstream parties for budget reforms and debt reduction to spare the Netherlands from the worst as Europe's debt crisis continues. According to nearly final results, the center-right Liberal Party of Mark Rutte and the center-left Labor Party took 31 and 30 seats respectively and are seen as the most likely to form the core of a common government. It appeared early Thursday that Rutte would be the party leader who attempts to form a government, as the Liberals became the largest grouping for the first time in Dutch history. In the previous parliament, the Liberal Party held 22 seats while Labor had 33 seats. Acting Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende resigned Wednesday night after his ruling Christian Democratic party lost 20 of its 41 seats. The previous government, a three-party coalition of center and left parties, collapsed in February after internal disagreement over the deployment of Dutch forces in Afghanistan. In the wake of Wednesday's election, the most likely coalition combination would be an unwieldy four-party grouping of Rutte's Liberals with a center-left trio of Labor and the smaller Democratic Liberal and Green parties. Most mainstream parties, except Rutte's Liberals, have ruled out bringing Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party into a new government. But Wilders' new popular support has added political heft to his demands to be among the candidates for a future coalition government. "The political establishment can't ignore us any longer," Wilders said Wednesday night. "The Dutch voters have clearly made a shift to the right in which Rutte's plans to curb immigration have also attracted voters, leaving Rutte no choice than to talk to Wilders about a possible coalition," said Gunther von Billerbeck, senior European analyst at Oxford Analytica, who added that the Liberals are closer to the Freedom Party than to Labor. Indicating his eagerness to play a part in the coalition talks, Wilders said he is willing to let go of his earlier stance to keep the pension age at 65, something he forcefully advocated during the election campaign. In order to deal with the aging population and the burden it will put on the state finances, most other parties are pushing to increase the pension age to 67. The Liberal Party could conceivably form a government in a center-right coalition with the Christian Democrats and Wilders' Freedom Party. Together, the three parties would command 76 seats. The Liberals share the Freedom Party's tough stance on immigration, but the two groupings are miles apart on economic issues, although both call for a cut in the Dutch contribution to the European Union as well as limits on expenditures related to immigration such as integration programs. Political analysts observed that if Wilders isn't in the government he will have another four years of taking shots at the government on sensitive immigration issues. There are doubts about the stability of Wilders' party because he is a newcomer with a relatively inexperienced group of people in his party, according to analysts. "This may also prevent Rutte from forming a government with Wilders," Pijpers said. The election results mean the next government could have trouble executing the reform agenda put forth by Rutte's Liberal Party. Rutte seeks to reduce the government's budget deficit by EUR20 billion by 2015, while Labor wants to see only an EUR11 billion cut over the same period. The country's deficit is currently 6.6% of a gross domestic product estimated to be EUR585 billion this year.